One of the good things Omaha has going is it’s zoo. My brother and his family decided to drive to Omaha with 4 of their kids on the spur of the moment (from Dallas) and asked us to go with them to the zoo.

This involved some quality time with my sister-in-law, brother and niece and nephews, my daughter and my husband, and a LOT of walking. I think we covered the whole zoo except for the cat complex and the desert dome.

It was a hot day, even though we got to the zoo at 9am and we were getting ready to leave around 12:30. My nephew asked to go into the desert dome. My brother and SIL asked, “Isn’t that just a big desert?” “Yeah,” I said, “and it’s hot”.

We decided on the gift shop instead.

By the way, there is a malayan tiger due to deliver cubs around August 1. You can see the tiger cub ultrasound here.

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My husband picked up a bit of bread and said, “I want to see if the swan will come to me”, then he dropped the bread at the last minute and the swan didn’t get his snack. So, I decided to pick up a piece of bread myself and handfeed it to the swan.

Umm, swans cannot apparently distinguish food from fingers, so he bit down ever-so-slightly on my fingers. Which made me laugh. And the other people who were standing there? They laughed, too.

The swan was beautiful. We watched him chase a waterfowl very quickly across the lake. Anytime this bird got into the lake, the swan was off to chase it out.

UPDATE: Turns out that swans nest in March and April and become very territorial during nesting season. Also, for some reason, swans just don’t like ducks and geese.

The swan was doing something called “busking”(neck curved back and wings half raised), which makes it appear bigger than it really is (which was actually quite big anyway). Mute swans are close to 30 pounds (weight-wise to you UK dwellers) and their wingspan can be up to 90 some-odd inches. Wow.

That voice you hear in the background is my little kid.

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